College Baseball Composite National Rankings #5 (3/15/18)

Texas Tech – boosted by its high standing in the computerized metrics (RPI, etc.) – remains atop CB360’s exclusive Composite National Rankings (CNR) Top–50, with Oregon State still in the No. 2 spot. Oregon State sits atop most of the human polls, but has slipped back in the overall CNR due to a lower strength of schedule/computer metics thus far this season.

(The CB360 Top–50 now features 15 different elements in the formula, tabulated after March 15 games. See full description, links to formula elements, etc., further down this page … )

Stanford – which is idle until March 23 – has climbed from No. 8 to No. 3 while Clemson (#6 to #4) keeps an Atlantic Coast Conference team near the top, as Florida State has dropped from 3rd to 11th (FSU lost a series at Wake Forest last weekend).

The Southeastern Conference currently has no top-4 teams in the CNR, but the league impressively holds down each spot from 5th-10th: Kentucky (up from #7), Ole Miss (dropped one spot from 5th), Auburn (jump from #11), Florida (slipped down from #4), Vanderbilt (up from #13) and Texas A&M (which moved from #12 to #10). Yet another SEC team, Arkansas, was 9th in the CNR a week ago but has dropped back a bit, to 12th.

The SEC remains above 10 teams in the CNR Top–50, with 11 (all but South Carolina, currently #52, and #58 Georgia, plus Tennessee). Early indications hint at a possible challenge for the Big Ten to earn a larger number of NCAA Tournament bids this season, as [16] Indiana and [31] Illinois are that league’s only current Top–50 teams. The Illini were not among the top-6 in the Big Ten preseason coaches poll … which opts not to list a full preseason poll (would be great to know where Illinois was forecasted, i.e. #7 or #13??).

AROUND THE HORN:
• Top-10 Regulars – Only four teams have been in the CNR Top–10 all season: Texas Tech, Oregon State, Kentucky and Florida.
• Quick Climbers – Clemson was #18 in the preseason CNR but now sits at #4 … Ole Miss similarly has climbed from #20 to #6 while Auburn’s strong start has boosted the Tigers from #36 in the preseason CNR to a current top-10 position (#7)

COMPOSITE NATIONAL RANKINGS (CNR) CRITERIA: Teams receive points based on their standings in each poll/rating/projection (60 pts for #1; 59 for #2, etc.). For polls involving voting points (coaches and CB) and the various RPI-type ratings, the CNR adjusts to reward teams that have larger margins in the voting/point totals (whereas two teams with nearly the same voting-point total will be closer in the CNR allotment for that poll). Note that strength-of-schedule typically is factored into RPI formulations … thus the actual SOS numbers only are used early in the season (SOS are not used in the CNR when RPI already are in the mix). For the NCAA field projections, teams are awarded CNR points based on their respective seedings, “last in” and “last out,” etc.

The polls/ratings/projections are averaged, with 40 points typically then added to each total in order to yield the 100-point benchmark. Early in the season (projected SOS; and preseason conference coaches polls) and late in the season (final-10 games), a maximum bonus/penalty of 2.0 (SOS & conf. poll) or 0.5 points (final-10) is factored into the formula (in that case, 38.0, or 39.5, rather than 40, is added to the poll/rating/projection avg.).
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